Monday, March 7, 2011

A Conversation with God- by Alton Gansky

In A Conversation with God, Alton Gansky takes some of the big questions that people have about the Christian faith and does his best to answer them using the Bible in various translations as his sole reference material.Using the Bible is the best way to minimalize outside theological influence and limit the answers to what the Bible has to say.

Much like a call-in radio program or talk-show, the book uses a chapter format that introduces the question, and then the characters of God and Jesus respond to the questions using Bible references and explanation to answer the questions.Along the way, various characters like Peter, Judas, Job and other biblical people of note show up to also provide some insight.I thought this was a clever way to address the questions of believers who have been a part of the Faith for either a short time or for quite a while.

There were parts that I enjoyed about this book and parts that really left me frustrated.One area where I felt that Gansky shined in his work was that each of the 55 questions has an in-depth use of Scripture.Each chapter was well thought-out.This book captured my interest because in many points, he made answers to questions plain and simple and didn’t bother to use polished rhetoric; the chapter on why some books weren’t included in the Bible is a good one.I also liked how each question could be isolated and read separately so that as a reader if I didn’t want to, I didn’t have to read through the whole book from beginning to end (which I did, though).

I felt that for the project of this book however, that Gansky might have tried to take on some really big questions that may not necessarily have been easily answered or explained in a four-page chapter.Questions dealing with whether a person can lose their salvation, where disease and sickness originated, and what will happen at the end of time are subjects that multiple books have been written on and after reading chapter entries on these that didn’t give conclusive answers, I felt that they should have either not been included, or the questions should have been altered so that I didn’t feel like I was left hanging.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who is given the charge of leading a class for new Christians.It is full of biblical truth and presented in an easy-to-understand manner.This book may be too easy of a read or rather frustrating for mature Christians though, so be careful.Be prepared to do additional research as sometimes the issues brought up may require further discussion.

I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.